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Low tier he has 3 3rd, 4 2nd and 5 1rst. It's all outlined in the scenario pdf as to what spells he can cast at ea. lvl. He has acid dart 7x/day and acid splash as a 0 lvl spell. Also arcane bond that he can re cast one of those spells like fireball or 1 from his spellbook listed in his gear.
All spelled out in the scenario with his tactics. He also has dimensional steps to keep mobile with.
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So since the below comment was from 2012, and the dimensional step is still present in the PDF copies available for the low subtier, do I get to ignore the dimensional step or did they change their mind since then and decide to leave that ability in at the low sub-tier?
I will be adjusting the encounter to remove dimensional step in the low subtier. That was an unfortunate error that our statblock generator slipped in, and the encounter was built around it. Getting that fixed is high on my scenario fixes agenda.
As for the imp, you'll note that Duchess isn't Aglorn's familiar in the low subtier; she's got a CR and it's calculated into the total for the encounter. In the low subtier, Aglorn's arcane bond is a ring.
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So since the below comment was from 2012, and the dimensional step is still present in the PDF copies available for the low subtier, do I get to ignore the dimensional step or did they change their mind since then and decide to leave that ability in at the low sub-tier?
I will be adjusting the encounter to remove dimensional step in the low subtier. That was an unfortunate error that our statblock generator slipped in, and the encounter was built around it. Getting that fixed is high on my scenario fixes agenda.
As for the imp, you'll note that Duchess isn't Aglorn's familiar in the low subtier; she's got a CR and it's calculated into the total for the encounter. In the low subtier, Aglorn's arcane bond is a ring.
Am going to be running this soon. No way am I letting a 5th level conjurer have access to an 8th level ability that is super powerful given the circumstances and layout. The players deserve a tough fight, but a fair one.
It's disappointing that a known and acknowledged mistake like this goes unfixed for years, but I'm not going to punish the players because of it.
A simple solution would be to give him a scroll of fly, costing him actions to use, but I'm going to run this according to the core rulebook. No dimensional steps. No extra items.
Fight seems pretty tough anyway.
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So since the below comment was from 2012, and the dimensional step is still present in the PDF copies available for the low subtier, do I get to ignore the dimensional step or did they change their mind since then and decide to leave that ability in at the low sub-tier?
I will be adjusting the encounter to remove dimensional step in the low subtier. That was an unfortunate error that our statblock generator slipped in, and the encounter was built around it. Getting that fixed is high on my scenario fixes agenda.
As for the imp, you'll note that Duchess isn't Aglorn's familiar in the low subtier; she's got a CR and it's calculated into the total for the encounter. In the low subtier, Aglorn's arcane bond is a ring.
Am going to be running this soon. No way am I letting a 5th level conjurer have access to an 8th level ability that is super powerful given the circumstances and layout. The players deserve a tough fight, but a fair one.
It's disappointing that a known and acknowledged mistake like this goes unfixed for years, but I'm not going to punish the players because of it.
A simple solution would be to give him a scroll of fly, costing him actions to use, but I'm going to run this according to the core rulebook. No dimensional steps. No extra items.
Fight seems pretty tough anyway.
This delves into GM fiat IMO. When I run this I generally forget about the Dimensional Step ability; however, If the party is steamrolling the adventure I'll add it to give the party pause, but generally speaking I don't add it in.
Considering this is a season 3 scenario and we are not in season 6; I'm pretty sure that fixing an old scenario is not going to make a high priority list. This is a case where we just have to adjust on our own as GMs
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Another interesting inclusion seems to be the BBEG getting a familiar AND an arcane bond at low tier. Hmmm.
No he isn't. The imp is factored into the CR, which she isn't if she was his familiar. Compare the CR section of the imp in low tier and high tier. (Also if the low tier imp was Aglorn's familiar, she would have a couple more hit points that she is listed as having.)
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Another interesting inclusion seems to be the BBEG getting a familiar AND an arcane bond at low tier. Hmmm.No he isn't. The imp is factored into the CR, which she isn't if she was his familiar. Compare the CR section of the imp in low tier and high tier. (Also if the low tier imp was Aglorn's familiar, she would have a couple more hit points that she is listed as having.)
Cool beans. Thanks.
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p. 19
"If Teenoch has allied with the PCs and is present here, Duchess becomes distracted and flies off to fight the demon instead of assiting Aglorn in combat."
Can Teenoch and Duchess actually do jack anything to each other? They are both immune to each other's poison and each possesses 5 points of DR that their meager physical attacks cannot get through.
Assuming both are there, I'm definitely willing to play off their engagement as a cinematic personal grudge match event off to the side where neither gains an advantage while the real combat takes place, but I want to make sure I'm not missing anything.
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Trip Report!
Members of six different races came together this afternoon to storm the diamond gate in the high tier.
Paladin
FLAAAAME Oracle of FLAAAAME
Sorcerer uh... also of flame
Alchemist bombs of flame?
Witch
Another Paladin
So yeah. Flames.
The Pathfinder Team took some time investigating the footprints and the sphinx/oasis from the outside, and I was rolling percentile approximately every minute they spent out there to see whether the patrol that happens "once an hour" got triggered. After about 5 or 6 rolls, 00, 2 appeared on the dice and the patrol started up the stairs with an oracle in position to notice them with some nifty "I can look through those torches that are inside" shenanigans. The PFS squad gets the jump on the patrol, the last one flees inside, and invisible Teenoch is there to see him get dropped.
The witch and oracle were interested enough in the tablets to get profane boons, and Teenoch showed up behind them and a tentative bargain was struck with Teenoch joining the party in an advisory role. Amulets were worn and they bypassed the Graven Guardian encounter.
I've had some time off work recently so I was able to mock up some foamcore rings with runes for the false portal puzzle and I think it really added to the effect of the whole room. (The written description of that puzzle is complicated enough to figure out when read, let alone trying to have someone describe it to you.) The trap was triggered once by the Alchemist as he played with the thing trying to figure out how to work it, but it was a minor speedbump.
Good scouting again got the drop on the AC agents in the old planar binding room who were too busy arguing over a game of Varisian Hold 'Em to hear the pathfinders approaching. KA-POW a pair of fireballs from the Sorcerer and the Oracle left them pretty much whimpering.
Ugh. The Final Fight. They wrecked it with good tactics, baaaaad initiative by the baddies, and a mistake by me.
They buffed up well prior to heading down the stairs, as they were told by both Teenoch and Besnik that the portal lay below and the BBEG was down there. They did not dilly dally rushing in, so it pretty much went like this...
They start down the stairs.
Alarm spell triggered silently, but they keep moving quickly.
Aglorn casts Shield.
They keep moving up towards the opening to the shrine at full movement.
Aglorn casts Wind Wall.
Now the paladins in front are seen at the entrance to the underground shrine.
Surprise round for the baddies. Arrows fired by the archers that do jack. As given in the tactics, Aglorn begins casting summon monster 5.
Initiative rolled. Aglorn goes.... after 4 casters and a paladin. Ugh. Sorcerer fireballs. Aglorn loses the summon spell. Sigh.
Conflicting information in his tactics now tells me that he either has to cast either another summon spell or tries a fireball. Well let's go with the summon monster 4 now and the fireball next round when the characters that aren't already flying might be all together on the bridge.
The summon monster 4 gets interupted by the alchemist throwing a bomb. <----mistake by me. Wind Wall should have stopped that, right?
Next round. Fireball on the group of 3 on the bridge! Oh the whole party was buffed with resist energy communal before going in? Yikes. The bridge survived the fireball with TWO hp left.
He didn't get a fourth round. That's okay. It was pretty fun to describe him flying through the air, getting hit, and falling down 100 feet and landing on the portal. Ouch. He dead.
The party went back on their word and did NOT allow Teenoch to enter the portal. They quickly turned it on and off before he could enter, and the alchemist used see invisibility to keep tabs on him. Frustrated, Teenoch flew up out of the shrine back up the stairs to the top level. More than likely, he'll be able to sneak through when the next pathfinder team comes to open the portal and go through next scenario.
Overall I enjoyed the scenario and I think the party enjoyed the RP with Teenoch, the stargate-esque ring puzzle, and while the last fight wasn't as challenging as it could have been, it was visually interesting and hand enough going on to be a satisfactory conclusion.
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Didn't run it, but played through it last Tuesday. Detect Magic saved the day more times than I can remember, as it pointed out all the nasty traps. We ran through with a couple mages, 1 hunter with a gorilla (me), a fighter, and a ranger. We played online over roll20 for the first time, which was interesting to say the least.
Much like most of the examples I read above, we sped through the majority of the scenario, though mostly just beating the tar out of our opponents and taking captives when we had the opportunity. We had no idea what was going on with the footsteps, but I believe we hit the patrol before they came out as we only hung around outside for a few minutes studying those statues. Later, we identified the obviously trapped Indiana Jones-esque hallway with a detect magic, covered it up with a cloth, and ignored the other tablets due to the evil feeling one would get when we started to look at them. When we got to the statue room, all but 2 of us had amulets on, so the statue awoke. Some of us had adamantine weapons, however, and made short work of it.
The demon thought we were friendly worshipers initially, then we explained we were pathfinders and would help him get home anyway. One of us was incredibly uncomfortable with it, despite being chaotic good he acted like a paladin which mostly made it funny to hear his discomfort with helping the demon. We kept an eye on our new 'friend', but didn't encounter any shinanigans and he helped take out an invisible imp during the final fight.
THE FINAL ROOM
This was a really neat environment and I love that you had to take it into account or get very dead. Unfortunately for the mage's summons, our fighter took it into account and was bull-rushing them off the bridge with more than a couple satisfying crunches echoing in the darkness. I'm not sure how it was supposed to be set up, but most of us were carrying light sources and our GM made it difficult to see where the spells were being cast from. We could get general directions by listening for the casting, but had to close the distance to pinpoint the conjurer. After a few rounds the bridge got fireballed but survived (it sounded close as our GM described the bridge as barely holding together. I rushed my hunter and gorilla across the bridge and had her climb down the wall to say hello to the mage (hunter 4, large gorilla with INT 3). The gorilla mauled the mage to death in a single round and the archer gave up after being webbed and seeing the mage get torn apart.
All in all we had a lot of fun going through this scenario and, while the online format stretched the game out to 5 hours, it went pretty smoothly as our GM had prepped everything beforehand.